October 6 2010: Petrified Forest National Park, Painted Desert

Wednesday, October 6 Start in Holbrook, Petrified Forest National Park/Painted Desert, Stay in Tucumcari NM
Weather: Lows: Winslow: 51 Holbrook: n/a Highs: Petrified Forest: 77; Albuquerque: 80; Tucumcari: 85 Hikes/Walks: 1.2 miles 0.5 miles : Petrified Forest - walk 1 0.3 miles : Petrified Forest - South Entrance area walk 0.4 miles : Petrified Forest

Interesting day today. We woke up relatively early to visit Petrified Forest National Park early in the day. As soon as I woke up, I looked at the radar (since we've been dodging storms all day the previous day), and see an impressive tornado signature... JUST WEST OF FLAGSTAFF. After spending nights in Flagstaff for an entire week, there is a big tornado signature about 10 miles west of the hotel we had been staying at, but we were now 2 hours away. If we had still been in Flagstaff, we would have quickly switched to storm chase mode, and it was still a little tempting even 2 hours away, but we went ahead with the plan of visiting Petrified Forest National Park and watch a few storms that developed closer to us near Winslow. If the storms near Winslow intensified, we would switch back to storm chase mode. But they didn't, although the storms made for some good background on the photographs in the park. But if we had known there would be two trailing storms that would also produce tornadoes and that this would be one of the most significant tornado outbreaks in Arizona history, we probably should have gone back to Flagstaff.